


Wrath

by tainry



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Character Death, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 02:13:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5809738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tainry/pseuds/tainry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tracks and Raoul make their way as best they can through a post-apocalyptic New York.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrath

**Author's Note:**

> For a tf_rare_pairing prompt.

Well, _that_ had gone to hell in a hurry. Raoul looked up into the barrel of a gun he could have comfortably walked through without bumping his head. He’d been here before. There were no bullets hanging above him, only the heat from the last time this thing had fired. Which was not that long ago. “Fuck you and your metal asshole, asshole,” Raoul sneered, refusing to be reduced to his component atoms without some kind of four-letter reply spitting through his teeth, even if it was a lame one. 

Thunder and hurricane broke over him and he hadn’t meant to close his eyes to meet the end, but the wind picked him up and tossed him and the sound of clashing metal bodies made his eyes hurt. But it was all crazy. Tracks had been _down_ , man. Down and cold to the touch. Raoul had just been waiting when the Con came. Never bothered learning all their names, the only one of these big scrap-piles he ever cared about was Tracks anyway. And maybe Blaster, but Blaster hadn’t come when the world went to shit. Blaster had stayed in Metroplex, last Raoul had heard.

But here was Tracks, face looking like one of those red demon masks Mr. Ping had in his funky shop in Chinatown, before the shop and Mr. Ping and Chinatown had pretty much been stepped on. Heat like rage coming off him in waves as he pounded the Con down into the rubble, until it looked like just another part of the twisted steel and broken concrete landscape.

Tracks was always angry these days. Angry at the Cons, angry at Optimus Prime for dying, angry at himself for surviving. Angry at Raoul for being one of the few humans left, Raoul supposed. Meaning Tracks still had this fragile squishy to protect, instead of drowning himself in stolen high-grade, or walking out under a line of Seekers and letting himself get fragged. 

Raoul picked himself up. Dusting off was pointless – he was sweating from the midsummer heat and everything stank and stuck and turned to mud anyway. He didn’t like to watch Tracks draining his kills of energon, so he stumbled off to find a sinkhole. Manhattan island was returning to rivers and ponds, but Raoul would be an old man or long dead before the water ran clean again. 

Or so he thought. Sunlight glinted off deep water far below his feet. Squared off edges meant this had once been a skyscraper’s basement. Raoul looked to the four quarters. How far had his ruse to draw out the Con taken him? Into the north, he thought. Into someone else’s territory probably, if there was anyone here at all. Raoul checked the charge on his pistol and crouched well away from the edge so as not to skyline himself again. 

Vines grew here, like all over the rest of the island, damn things growing faster than the mutant trees. Raoul shinnied down the underside, hidden by leaves, stopping a half-floor above the water’s surface, letting his eyes adjust because his eyes were still the original equipment and it took them a while. 

“Put it away, man. I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

Raoul put a green dot on the guy’s chest before the third word was out. Shaggy hair, eye patch, long coat and boots that had seen better days. A lot of heavy artillery for one guy, but maybe with those arms he could handle it. Sitting on what had probably been the granite pedestal for some statue, on the other side of the pool. Raoul let the green dot slide sideways a few inches. 

“I ain’t jumping,” Raoul said, “if this is your stake. Just passing through. No harm.” 

“Ain’t my stake, man,” the guy said. “Ain’t nobody’s stake. Nobody _here_. Thought that blue Robbie up there was a friend of yours. Is he?”

Raoul holstered the pistol – it was always close – and lowered himself the rest of the way to a block of concrete not entirely covered in slippery green algae. “Yeah. He’s mine.”

The man laughed. “He’d give the same answer, I bet.” He rose, moving easy despite his age and the scars. Raoul managed not to go for his gun again. “Well. You’re not a clean Double-X and I don’t do the Castro, so I’ll leave you and your Robbie to your bath. Or whatever.” He climbed up a floor, slipped into the darkness of a tunnel and was gone.

“Whatever, dude.” Raoul fiddled with his watch. It ran on the movement of the tendons in his wrist, and his pulse – and it was more than a watch. “Tracks? You done up there?”

Yes. Where are you? Tangles of rebar and crumpled I-beams played hell with the signal.

“‘Bout a hundred meters southwest. Found us some water. Look down.”

Heavy footfalls above, and shadow fell over the water. Raoul waved.

Time was, Tracks would have jumped in, just to soak Raoul with the splash. Now he moved carefully, climbing down, still damaged, though flush with Decepticon fuel. Tracks used to complain about the taste, but Hoist had died in his arms, and Tracks had drained him, too, and admitted one very dark night how the flavor hadn’t really been any different. 

Raoul grinned and shucked out of his clothes as Tracks slid into the water, the level rising as Tracks descended, reaching almost to his wings once his feet touched the rubble bottom. They hadn’t been clean since spring. Tracks didn’t go out in thunderstorms. Raoul piled everything – including the pistol – on a dry ledge. He didn’t care about the risk; they’d both almost been dead today already. Let the dice roll. Diving in, driving deep enough to swim through Tracks’ legs, Raoul surfaced with Tracks’ hand rising beneath him, just in case. Warm as a bath near the top, the water grew cold quickly after about four feet. It felt wonderful.

“You should have kept the clothes on,” Tracks said, almost sounding like his old self. “They’re just as filthy.” 

“You’re not exactly the Rose of Cybertron yourself.” 

“Hmph,” Tracks said, bouncing a little at the knees to make waves. A little harder and they might reach Raoul’s clothes on the ledge. “Car-wash detergent hasn’t exactly been readily available. Or polishing wax. Or silicone. Mmmmm, silicone...” 

“Oh, here we go again.” Raoul swam to an edge. The vine leaves had the virtue of useful texture without being poisonous. He pulled off two handfuls and found a submerged block he could stand on to scrub himself. 

“Your hair needs cutting again,” Tracks observed, watching him closely. Bigger hands pulled down entire clumps of vine and wadded them up to be used as Raoul was using the leaves. It was better than nothing. “Or is the Tarzan look ‘in’ this month?”

“Ha. At least I shave.” They’d found a cache of disposable razors in a collapsed grocery store early in the year. “You missed a spot. Lower. No, man, on your chin. There. All right, let me do the rest. You can’t reach anyway.” 

“I could if I had to,” Tracks said. He obligingly rolled facedown in the water and braced himself with hands and feet on the walls of the pool, spread-eagled so that Raoul could reach every seam and groove. Raoul pulled down a fresh length of vine and got to work, moving over his friend’s body methodically. Dirt and oil had worked into even the minutest scratch and Raoul scrubbed hard, feeling the metal under his knees shiver. 

Tapping on Tracks’ chassis, Raoul jumped clear so Tracks could turn over to expose his front side. Tracks had no eyelids to close, but Raoul was sensitive to every subtle purr and appreciative rumble of engine. He worked carefully around the fresh plasma burns, wiping carbon from open holes where Tracks had shut off power to avoid electrocuting Raoul in the water. 

Raoul spread his knees wider. Not so much to get better leverage for scrubbing, but because he was getting hard, and Tracks was watching, and now and then sensitive parts of Raoul would brush against Tracks’ armor not really by accident. 

Stretching himself along the diameter of a shoulder, Raoul wriggled his hips a little, altering his position until he could slide himself on slick wet armor whose high-tech paint, even faded, was meant to decrease drag to near zero. He pushed himself up on his arms, knowing Tracks was still watching, and thrust in long, slow ellipses, gradually increasing tempo, hair falling into his eyes, mouth open for more air, moaning around clenched teeth when Tracks deliberately sent engine vibration revving powerfully between them. White flecked royal blue. Tracks, smiling as Raoul shuddered, didn’t mind.

Even before he’d caught his breath, Raoul dug fingers into the tight but sensitive cables of Tracks’ neck. Mangled vine slipped unnoticed into the water. Tracks lifted his chin slightly. Fans somewhere down in his chest thrummed faster. Raoul imagined the hot energon coursing through massive lines, corrosive to human flesh, explosive in an oxygen atmosphere, vital as the hidden laser core that gave Tracks’ kind life. He could feel the slow, deep pulse through all the parts of himself that were now metal.

There, under Tracks’ chin, and then lower, near the junction of two of the biggest structural cables where they disappeared into the armor of his chest, were sensitive places that Raoul’s hands could reach. Hard, but supple, the articulated metal columns felt deceptively silky – like Tracks’ voice. Raoul pushed deeper, seeking the nerve-wires, stroking them gently when he found them because the reaction would mangle his hands if he and Tracks weren’t very careful. Tracks held quite still, engine roaring now – a butterfly’s wings stirring a monsoon. 

Overload shook through every joint and circuit, the static charge safely contained within insulated compartments, CPU-blowing, a trick only a few learned. Garbled noise escaped his vocoder, losing any resemblance to a human voice; turning stranger yet as Tracks’ limbs went slack and he lost his grip, sinking like an ironclad. Raoul held on, grinning, all Tracks’ color fading to coelacanth-blue as they descended, and Raoul’s hair wove a column of sea-wrack above them. 

Raoul had things in his blood, he couldn’t remember what they were called because his memory enhancements had gone dead last year, eaten by his equally enhanced immune system; but he could hold his breath for a long time. He waited for Tracks’ optics to light. 

They were like high-beams in the blue dimness, a Jacob’s Ladder from below. Tracks, curling a hand protectively around Raoul, surged to the surface. Waves boomed and curled in the confines of the pool, and Raoul’s pile of clothes tilted and slid into the water. Tracks cupped his hand beneath so nothing sank far, and Raoul’s pistol was no more affected by immersion than Tracks’ was.

“Hey! I was gonna wash those, honest!” Raoul retrieved his belongings and retreated to a convenient ledge. 

“Yes, and if you get that onerous little chore out of the way now, you can’t conveniently forget it later.”

“Admit it. You just don’t want me messing up your upholstery.” 

“You used to care about my upholstery, too,” Tracks huffed. 

Raoul stared at him with a jaded sort of horror. “Not playing your reindeer games, man.”

“Fine. If you want to climb into clothes that can stand by themselves when you are yourself reasonably clean, go right ahead.”

Grumbling, Raoul set about the task, taking some care about it despite his protests. By the time he was finished, the sun’s rays were beginning to slant from the opposite edge of the sinkhole. After draping his clothes on the least rusty bits of rebar he could find, he jumped back into the pool and clambered up on Tracks’ extended hand. Having been thoroughly stirred by Tracks’ movements, the water was even cold at the surface now.

Raoul shaded his eyes. He knew Tracks had been scanning as usual, but his range would be limited from down here. “Think we should climb back up?”

“I’m content to stay longer. Unlike some people _I_ won’t wrinkle up. If you want to lie out in the sun to dry off I’ll hold you.” Tracks flattened his hand and shifted slightly to move Raoul fully into the slanting beams. 

“Thanks.” Raoul stretched out, enjoying the heat after the chill of the water. The metal of Tracks’ hand and forearm grew hot quickly though, and Tracks moved him into a small oasis of dappled shade where a tree grew out of the side of the basement wall. “No way to get a tan,” Raoul murmured, and fell asleep.

He woke in a state of arousal, a warm, soft breeze like silk trailing over his skin. Except there shouldn’t have been a breeze, fifty feet below the surface. Tracks was rocking him, mimicking exactly the lazy motion of a hammock, his optics very bright in the shadows now that dusk was gathering. 

Raoul clasped his hands behind his head, grinning, spreading his knees to give Tracks an unobstructed view. He was hungry, but in more than one way. 

“Subtlety isn’t exactly your strong suit, is it,” Tracks commented, even as he poised his other hand above Raoul’s body, waving his fingers suggestively. 

“Since when has subtlety ever gotten me anywhere with you?” Raoul, watching those fingers intently, spread himself out flat – or as flat as he could, given the state of his nether regions. 

“Can’t you think of anything better to do with your mouth than talk?” Tracks lowered his other hand carefully, fingertips trailing over Raoul’s body. It was difficult to relax, but Raoul tried, turning his head to kiss the last joint of Tracks’ forefinger, where the alloy plates met behind a flexible composite band. Tracks shivered. 

“Huhhnn. Always g-gotta have the last word,” Raoul murmured, nuzzling the same finger of the hand upon which he lay. He arched against Tracks’ stroking like a cat, the tapered fingertips drawing precise circles unerringly in all the places Raoul liked, even through his long hair, which was so soft and fine Tracks could barely perceive it. One finger nudged delicately between Raoul’s legs, then higher, taking up a steady up-and-down rhythm as Raoul moaned and rolled his hips. 

“Faster,” Raoul gasped. He bit and licked at the finger-seam, his hands groping at other joints, knowing how it sent tiny but interesting charges up into Tracks’ CPU. Tracks’ hands were sensitive. 

Tracks obliged, stroking with just the right firmness, slick and hot. Raoul held still, his body taut, legs gripping Tracks’ forearm. Faster yet, and Tracks brought another finger next to the first, creating a V-shaped niche, made slippery by one of the ways in which Raoul was still organic. The sight of Tracks watching him – lips parted, optics fierce – sent him curling tight within himself, clenching and spilling until the wonderful paroxysm eased and he sprawled boneless and half asleep again.

Tipping his head in the way that was the equivalent of winking, Tracks set Raoul up on a floor above the waterline, and as far from any metal as he could, then sank into the pool. Raoul leered down at him through the water and laughed. Tracks was going to finish himself off the old fashioned way, which would electrify the water. Probably it was too much to hope for that there were any edible fish close enough to get insta-fried. There was no sound, but in the dusk bright flashes of underwater lightning illuminated the hollow walls strangely.

After a few minutes, Tracks emerged with a slightly dazed look on his face. Dazed but pleased. He extended a hand and Raoul climbed on, watching curiously as Tracks’ expression grew pensive.

Slowly, Tracks cradled Raoul against his face, kissing Raoul’s chest like he used to, as though Raoul was something precious, not a burden. The timing of his engine missed a little. 

Raoul’s stomach growled. 

“All right,” Tracks said, lips brushing carefully against skin. “Let’s find you something to eat before you waste away.”


End file.
